Should the Jedi be considered good or beneficial?

[suarezguy]

They enforced laws and settled disputes, protected innocent people, but they also took away children from their parents (or, if it is a distinction or difference, expected and got parents to give up their children) to join them in their group and be devoutly non-attached to their families.

That seems like the Republic paying a pretty terrible price for its protections.

 

[EnderAKH]

Defund the Jedi!!

 

[Skywalker]

The Jedi only took children if the parents were willing to let them go. Sending your child to train to be a Jedi was considered to be an honor.

Anyway, the answer is yes. While the Jedi had grown complacent and started to lose their way, there's a reason why the Empire made it a point to eradicate them.

 

[fireproof78]

Thus far, from what I have seen, the answer is no. Individuals have been good but the organization is questionable.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I kinda feel like Count Dooku had a point.

 

[USS Firefly]

The Jedi were flawed but good, one of their biggest problem was having an grand master(Yoda).
No organisation should have a leader for life, especially if that person can live for hundreds of years. That I think is the reason they became blinded and arrogant

 

[Turtletrekker]

I think the Jedi Order correctly defines the notion that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 

[Jedman67]

"For a thousand generations, the Jedi were the guardians of peace in the galaxy"

Of course, everything is "complicated"

The Jedi Order, as it stood in the generation or so before the Prequels began, was not meant to be a military force; rather a neutral 'ambassador' force. In order to maintain neutrality; the Code went to an extreme.
No relationships, no love.
No passions, or humanitarian causes.

In order to break even the potential of conflict, Jedi apprentices were brought to the order as young children, separated for life from their parents.
This extreme went too far, as Qui Gon, long considered to be a bit of a maverick within the Order, pointed out that without grounding, without something to care about, a Jedi could too easily become caring only about oneself - for a fascinating look at self serving greed, read the new Thrawn trilogy and Moff Pryce's rise to power.

 

[Reverend]

It depends on the needs of the story, and the time in which it is set. The Jedi Order after all is like any organization made up of individuals, and individuals are fallible. Organizations also tend more and more towards acting in their own interest over and above their intended and stated purpose the longer they're around. Complacency, arrogance and corruption is inevitable.

I tend to think that the true legacy of the Jedi isn't the philosophies, the traditions, the lightsabers or even the lives saved, but the myth of the Jedi themselves. The idea of the Jedi. Even when the Jedi themselves fail to live up to that very ideal, their legend persists. It inspires hope in the righteous, and dread in the wicked. It'll drive their inheritors to achieve that ideal for generations to come.

 

[Masiral]

It depends on the needs of the story, and the time in which it is set. The Jedi Order after all is like any organization made up of individuals, and individuals are fallible. Organizations also tend more and more towards acting in their own interest over and above their intended and stated purpose the longer they're around. Complacency, arrogance and corruption is inevitable.

I tend to think that the true legacy of the Jedi isn't the philosophies, the traditions, the lightsabers or even the lives saved, but the myth of the Jedi themselves. The idea of the Jedi. Even when the Jedi themselves fail to live up to that very ideal, their legend persists. It inspires hope in the righteous, and dread in the wicked. It'll drive their inheritors to achieve that ideal for generations to come.

They're the Knights of the Round Table. King Arthur's Camelot ended tragically, but the legend lives on centuries later as the ideal of honor and chivalry.

 

[Reverend]

They're the Knights of the Round Table. King Arthur's Camelot ended tragically, but the legend lives on centuries later as the ideal of honor and chivalry.

And as with the Jedi, about 97% of it was entirely fabricated.

 

[Oddish]

There's a greater good to be considered. A handful of children were removed from their families and presumably raised in an institutional setting, which is hardly a good thing. But, consider the billions of Republic citizens that the Jedi protected for centuries. As Spock would say, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

 

[The Wormhole]

but they also took away children from their parents (or, if it is a distinction or difference, expected and got parents to give up their children)

Although it comes from Legends, it's a situation I suspect was probably the case in Canon as well in that most parents, upon learning their children were Force sensitive, gladly voluntarily handed them over to the Jedi Order considering it great bragging rights to say "my child is becoming a Jedi."

Personally, the concept of indoctrinating children from the point when they were toddlers never sat well with me and I consider that to be one of the more messed up aspects of the Jedi Order.

 

[JD]

The Jedi definitely had their problems, which only got worse in the lead up to the fall of the order and Republic, but I think the good definitely outweighed the bad.
I do think the whole no attachments and taking them away from their families were bad ideas. I've always felt the kind of emotional attachments the Jedi forbid were important parts of becoming a healthy individual.

 

[Reverend]

Although it comes from Legends, it's a situation I suspect was probably the case in Canon as well in that most parents, upon learning their children were Force sensitive, gladly voluntarily handed them over to the Jedi Order considering it great bragging rights to say "my child is becoming a Jedi."

Personally, the concept of indoctrinating children from the point when they were toddlers never sat well with me and I consider that to be one of the more messed up aspects of the Jedi Order.

This kind of thing has actually gone on for most of recorded human history. Even today religious boarding schools are very much a thing and if there was one that was considered *the best* on the planet with a long and trusted history of turning out students with life-long security, and it offered free tuition to some random kids, you can bet 99% of their parents would consent. Not just for the prestige it would bring to the family and indeed the community at large, but because it would provide the child with a much better life than most parents could every hope to.

I mean just as an example, take note of some of Ahsoka's vocation skillset at age 17: qualified starfighter pilot, able starship mechanic, advanced computer science and slicing operative, expert in multiple martial arts both armed and unarmed. Any one of those would be impressive and more than enough to land a well paying job, and that's likely just scratching the surface, and doesn't even touch on the academic education. And that's someone who's just begun the apprenticeship phase of their education!

Most of all, it's worth remembering that a person can leave the Jedi order for any reason and at any time. They can just walk off with their highly marketable job skills and go home, without any financial or legal debt.

 

[Shawnster]

The Jedi were flawed but good, one of their biggest problem was having an grand master(Yoda).
No organisation should have a leader for life, especially if that person can live for hundreds of years. That I think the reason they became blinded and arrogant

Where was it depicted Yoda was a supreme final authority for the Jedi and not just 1 member of the council?

 

[USS Firefly]

Where was it depicted Yoda was a supreme final authority for the Jedi and not just 1 member of the council?

I thought he was grandmaster for life, and that most masters followed his lead. But I could be wrong

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Jedi only took children if the parents were willing to let them go. Sending your child to train to be a Jedi was considered to be an honor.

Anyway, the answer is yes. While the Jedi had grown complacent and started to lose their way, there's a reason why the Empire made it a point to eradicate them.

Old English show the Prisoner.

Any baby not taken to the Jedi temple, by force, will be taken to the Sith temple by force.

After hundreds of altercations over thousands of years, where some baby who's parent chose not to hand it over to the Jedi, became Sith and went mental, culling back half the Jedi in a light saber rampage, fuck those parents, or fuck the next set of parents that try to bogart a force baby.

Obi-Wan killed Beru and Owen to get Luke.

Standard operating procedure.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In intent, absolutely. You can argue some of their actions overstepped or had unintended consequences. But in the kind of universe Star Wars is there’s big enough threats to everyone’s safety to make them necessary. And those kids being taught by Jedi is better than the Sith recruiting them by force or them hurting someone with powers they don’t understand.

Take the same group and give them accountability and oversight you solve a lot of the problems.

 

[fireproof78]

Take the same group and give them accountability and oversight you solve a lot of the problems.

Funny, that's the argument that Palpatine used in the ROTS novel...



No, I think there is a point that the Jedi needed some measure of accountability, but I think they became more independent.